Roster Regulation: Mandatory class sizes limit Cedar courses
As the fall semester began, Cedar Shoals teachers were made aware of new mandatory class size limits, leaving some unprepared and confused by last minute changes to their rosters and schedules.
Associate Principal of Instruction Dr. Melissa Perez explains that the state decides the class size limits. Biannual attendance checks known as FTE (full-time equivalent) checks are held in October and March, where the attendance is tracked for those days. Funding depends on the number of students in attendance and which specific students the class caters to, such as special education or gifted programs. These programs are given more funding weight, which provides resources for the students in them.
“The district gives us what is called an allotment and says, ‘You can have this many teachers in each department.’ There are two days out of the year where what the attendance is for that day is what the state determines to use as our enrollment. Based on the number of students in each class on that day is how the district funds the school with the number of teachers we get,” Perez said.
The class size limitations determine if each class receives funding from the state. With the size limit generally ranging from 12-30 students, if a class is too small or large, it can no longer be funded and is dissolved. The class size limits vary based on the content level and different sections such as career and technical education classes, fine arts classes, and advanced placement (AP) classes. The funding for a class is determined by the funding each student in the class receives.
To determine funding, there is a base number of one for each student, but if they take a class that receives more funding, weight gets added to the base. For example, a student taking a an on-level academic class carries the base of one. If they take an AP class, .7 points are added to make the funding weight 1.7 for the student in that section, which means that the school receives more funding for the class.
Even after the fall semester began, Cedar’s AP statistics class was dissolved due to low enrollment.
“I understand that at some point, even if it’s a class that you want to try to offer as a school, you can’t have one kid sitting in a class. I think we had six at the time that they dropped it,” math department chair Brandt Hacker said.
French teacher Caroline Bharucha was also informed that her schedule had to change due to the lack of student participation in her upper level classes. Though they weren’t entirely collapsed, her French II and French III classes are now combined into one class period.
“The expectation is significantly different in what you cover and what you’re learning. It’s going to be difficult for me to manage two different levels that are so at odds with one another,” Bharucha said.
Despite this concern, Bharucha thinks that collapsed classes will pose more of a challenge for students than teachers.
“Upperclassmen pick classes because they have a plan for college education and you need (certain classes) in order to get into certain (programs). Your first priority is to graduate but you need to set yourself up with options. So when you show up the first week of school and they’re not offering the class that you really felt you needed for your plan, that’s upsetting,” Bharucha said.
Many of the classes that were collapsed or had low enrollment are upper-level courses, such as AP statistics, AP literature, and French III. As students continue to enroll at the Athens Community Career Academy and dual enroll at local universities, attendance in advanced high school courses may be left more and more underpopulated.
“I was disappointed but we’ve had this happen before, where a big group comes through taking AP Statistics one year and then the next year, kids avoid taking the class,” Hacker said.
Hacker believes that there are many benefits to taking these AP courses in high school rather than the alternative of taking the course at ACCA or through dual enrollment.
“When you’re taking a class like statistics in high school, an AP course, you have a teacher who is right there with you for 90 days in a semester. They are very willing to answer your questions, versus taking it in a larger group of students at a college when you’re dealing with pretty abstract ideas,” Hacker said.
Junior Michael Kent was originally signed up for AP statistics, and was left disappointed after finding out that his class was dissolved.
“With a small class size, it’s more personal. There’s more time for silly little conversations that are connected to what we’re doing. It feels much more engaging and involved,” Kent said.
When a class is collapsed, students meet with their counselor to decide how to fill their schedule. They are given a list of available classes to pick from.
Still, Kent felt dissatisfied with the choices he was given to replace his collapsed class period with.
“I was very disappointed to hear my counselor list off all the classes I could take because absolutely none of them were to my benefit. You could pick from a list of available classes, that was it,” Kent said.
Wanting students to follow their plan for the future and challenge themselves, Counselor Christina Cotsakis Cordon explains that advising students on how to fill their schedules can prove challenging.
“I find it hard because I want every student to have a schedule that does three things: meets their needs, benefits what they want to do after high school and really just something they enjoy. But sometimes it’s literally not possible,” Cotsakis Cordon said.
